MutualArt: showing artists how to retire in style (Wednesday 11 August 2004)

Compiled by Isobel Harbison

Lamar Peterson (a New York artist recently chosen for the pension scheme). At The Beach, 2004. Image held here

MutualArt is a new company that has been set up in the States hoping to provide pensions for up-and-coming artists. The company has already established itself in New York, recruiting artists such as Chris Mir, Lamar Peterson, and Chloe Piene, and hopes to spread not only around North America but also throughout Europe and Asia, citing Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Beijing, Tokyo and finally Moscow as planned cities for the not-too-distant future.

The three masterminds behind the scheme are Moti Shniberg, an Israeli businessman, Professor Dan Galai, a specialist in risk management, and David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Art. The advisory board includes artists John Baldessari and Kiki Smith as well as art critic Irving Sandler.

MutualArt plans to elect a committee for every regional scheme they set up. There will be 250 up-and-coming artists chosen per region, each donating twenty works over a twenty-year period. These works will be stored, insured and lent to different museums by MutualArt. The works will be sold if and when the committee decide, according to the market. When these works are sold 40% of profits will go to the artist's personal retirement account, 40% will go to the group fund, and 20% will be reinvested into MutualArt. The company estimate that the success of even two of the 250 artists will be enough to subsidize the scheme in each region; however, they hope that the success rate of artists chosen will be somewhere between 5% and 10%.

The whole situation seems to be of the 'no lose' variety. All of the artists chosen will receive a pension, the hugely successful ones will be rewarded accordingly. And with a 20% revenue from all sales the fat-cat investors will not be shedding too many pounds either.

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